Syllabus: WILD 3830 Range plant taxonomy and function Location: Natural Resources Building 217 Time: Fall 2016; Wednesdays 12:30-5:30 Instructor: Dr. Andrew Kulmatiski, [email protected], NR 224, 881-5496 Office hours: Thursdays 9:00 – 10:00 and by appointment. Teaching Assistant: Martin Holdrege Undergraduate Teaching Fellow (UTF): TBD Course website: Look up course on Canvas: https://usu.instructure.com/courses/374093 Course fee: $153 to cover travel to field sites and plant sample mounts COURSE FORMAT: 3 credits. One, five-hour class/laboratory meeting each Wednesday. There will also be an all-day field trip on Saturday 3 September and a three-day field trip to Southern Utah the weekend before Thanksgiving (Nov. 18-22). COURSE OBJECTIVES: 1) To identify the important/common plants of wildlands in the Intermountain West. 2) To develop the ability to use taxonomic keys to identify plants. COURSE DESCRIPTION: Taxonomy and identification of dominant forb, grass, grass-like and woody species found in major plant communities of the Intermountain West. Also includes limited coverage of dominant species in Southwest Desert and Great Plains plant communities. Plant identification is based on 1) sight-recognition of characteristic morphological features and understanding the context in which a plant is found and 2) the use of taxonomic keys. We will also spend one day practicing vegetation sampling techniques. This should be a fun course. I have designed it to make sure that you know the species before you are tested on them. There is no reason that everyone shouldn’t get an A. COURSE STRUCTURE: To introduce students to plants in their native habitats, the first 10 weeks of the course (depending on weather) will occur in field sites around Cache Valley. Each week you will be introduced to 5-25 plant species common to the site. We will then take a three-day trip to southern Utah to learn about some dominant desert species of the state. The remainder of the semester (3 weeks) will be conducted in the classroom using pressed plant samples. This part of the course will cover plants from the Southwest and Midwest and will include two exam days. At the beginning of each day in the field, the TA and I will establish three transects. One transect will have species from the previous week marked for you to review. You will have about 45 minutes to review these species before moving to the second transect which will be used to take a quiz on the species from the previous week. These daily quizzes account for about 25% of your grade. We will then spend about an hour learning the new species for the week. Finally we will spend about an hour using taxonomic keys to identify an ‘unknown’ plant. Any remaining time will be available to review the new species for the week. The TA and I will work with each of you independently to make sure you are correctly identifying plants. This general schedule will hold true for most of the semester though there will likely be one or two sites where we will learn and be quizzed on plants during one day (i.e., there are only about five halophyte species in the valley so we will learn and be quizzed on these during one day). You will be responsible for keeping a field notebook for the class. The notebook should contain notes (i.e., drawing or pressed samples, text) for each plant species that will help you remember the species. These are notes you should be taking as we are learning the plants in the field so this shouldn’t take any additional time. You will hand these in after class and I will have them outside my office for you to pick up on Thursday or Friday. These notes are worth about 6% of your grade. Finally, you will be responsible for creating a ‘fact sheet’ for one plant species each of the first 12 weeks of class. This fact sheet will include information about the biology and use of the species. A sample sheet can be found at the end of the syllabus. Fact sheets are due at the beginning of each class and can be emailed to me. Each fact sheets should take you about 30 minutes or less to complete and represent about 8% of your grade. The first mid-term will be a cumulative test of the species covered in our field trips and will be worth 22% of your grade. The second mid-term will be cumulative for all the species in the course (including the Southwest and Midwest species) and will be worth 30% of your grade. Finally, the final exam will have you key out three unknown species and will be worth about 8% of your final grade. LAB/FIELD EQUIPMENT: FIELD TRIPS: COME EARLY, COME PREPARED. The buses will depart from the NR bridge at 12:35 exactly. If you miss the bus you will have a very hard time learning the plants. The field trips may be hot and dry or cold and wet so be sure to come prepared with appropriate field cloths. While in Tony Grove this August the temperature dropped from 80 to 45 and I was caught in a terrific hailstorm – come prepared. If you are unsure of what would be needed contact the instructor. At a minimum, bring a rain jacket, rain pants and water bottle to each class. You are responsible for supplying your own magnifying lens for viewing minute plant features in labs and on field trips. You should purchase a 10X to 20X lens. Several magnifying lenses are available online at Amazon.com, ranging in price from $4.00 to 8.00 – they are sold as “Jeweler’s Loupes.” The USU Bookstore (Logan Campus) sells 10X lenses for $13.00 to $15.00. Students must bring a notebook and writing tools to take notes during field trips. Students are strongly encouraged to purchase an artist’s drawing pad or plant press (to be discussed in class) and collect plants on field trips. Having samples of the plants to study at home will be a great help in learning the plants. STUDENT ASSESSMENT: 1) Daily Quizzes (see Schedule below). You will be quizzed on species identification in the field. For each species, you will get one, two, three and three points for the correct Family (or Tribe), Genus, Species, and common name respectively = 1080 points. 2) Daily Notes (due before the first quiz for the plant, -5% for each day late). a. You will get two point for field notes / drawing made of each plant = 240 points. b. You will get 30 points for each species factsheet (and glossary) = 360 points 3) Midterm (test of all local species): 105 species x 9 points = 945 points 4) Second midterm (cumulative of all species): 145 species x 9 points = 1305 points 5) Final: Use a taxonomic key to identify three plants not covered during the course (20, 40, 60 and 60 points for Family, Genus, Species and common name): 360 points Bonus: Terminology Tournament. During the Dec. 2 review day we will have a terminology tournament. Teams of three to four will define terms in head-to-head sudden-death competition. 1st to 8th place teams will receive an 8-1% bonus for their course grade. Total points: 4290 Grade Distribution*: 3990-4290 (93%+) A 3303-3431 (77-79.9%) C+ 3861-3989 (90-92.9%) A- 3131-3302 (73-76.9%) C 3732-3860 (87- 89.9%) B+ 3003-3130 (70-72.9% C- 3561-3731 (83-86.9%) B 2574-3002 (60-69.9%) D 3432-3560 (80-82.9%) B- < 2574 (<59.9%) F *NOTE*: The exact grading scheme will depend on the exact number of species we cover which will depend a little bit on which plants are flowering and the weather. The concept, however, is that you can get 5% of the species wrong and get an ‘A’, 10 % wrong for an ‘A-‘, 15% wrong for a B+, etc. So if you miss one or two species each week - don’t worry. TEACHING ASSISTANTS: Martin Holdrege will be our TA. Martin has been surveying plants in precipitation manipulation experiments at Blacksmith Fork all summer and will be with us each class to help you learn the plants. I would also like any student that has field experience at identifying plants or their uses (range, forestry, and wildlife habitat surveys) to step up and provide leadership in the class to help all students learn the plants. There is no better way to learn something than to teach it. ACCESS TO HERBARIUM SPECIMENS FOR STUDY: Study sets of herbarium samples will be placed at the back of NR217 or on racks at the west end of the second floor NR hallway each week. You may take the study sets down to the atrium to study but be careful with them and be sure to return them when done. Everyone uses these. NOTE: Study mounts will seldom if ever be used for ID quizzes or the ID parts of the midterm and final exams. Your job is to not learn the mounts but to learn the plant characteristics. READING MATERIALS: The taxonomic key ‘Vascular plants of Northern Utah: an identification manual’ by Richard J. Shaw is the required text for the class. You will use this book each week to ‘key’ a plant in the field. If you want to better understand plant family characteristics, I highly recommend another book, Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification by Thomas J.